It has been a rough few years for Research in Motion, the maker of the Blackberry line of mobile devices. Since Apple entered the mobile phone market, RIM’s financial situation has deteriorated and its market capitalization has plummeted by almost 95 percent since its mid-2008 peak of more than $100 billion. The company has brought in new leaders, but most pundits assume that the game is already over, and that it’s just a matter of time before we write RIM’s obituary.

Yet in September RIM reported that its subscriber base had grown to 80 million from 78 million. The company’s market share is still decreasing, but companies on death’s door don’t tend to report sales growth.